The 17 Craziest Cannibal Attacks in History

List Criteria: Violent cannibals from a culture where it isn't normal or accepted. Only attacks with intent to eat.

Cannibalism is one of the strangest and most disgusting crimes a person can possibly commit. This is a list about the craziest real-life cannibal attacks that have ever happened, either in a single incident or over a series of years (and sometimes, decades). All the famous cannibals on this list killed people with intent to eat or at least cook their victims. I've excluded people like the tribes of the West Indies and Maori tribes and other cultures were cannibalism was just a part of life. The real cannibals on this list committed these crimes while living within the rules of Western society and all of the crimes on this list were horribly violent. These are the worst, most depraved, and most well-known famous cannibals in human history.

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1

Mom Tries to Eat Newborn Baby

24-year-old Li Zhenghua was spotted chewing on her newborn son's arm just minutes after giving birth. A nurse found the new mom with her teeth locked around the baby's wrist. Hospital staff were eventually able to pry the woman's mouth open and rescue the little boy, but not before he sustained heavy bruising and bleeding.

Zhenghua is suspected to have been living on the streets for several weeks after her mother kicked her out of the house despite being pregnant.

Suspected murderer Matthew Williams, 34, was caught in a hotel room in November 2014, eating parts of a 22-year-old woman's face. He had been released a few weeks prior, having served a five-year prison sentence for a violent attack on his partner, who happened to live near the hotel at which he was staying.

Security staff called the police after they discovered him allegedly eating the woman, face first. According to Jill Edwards, a local resident who described Williams as "an animal," they entered his room after not getting a response from Williams, who is also known by the nickname "Fifi."

This attack would prove to be his last, as he was struck by a high voltage taser used by the police to assist in his apprehension. He was formally arrested following the tasing, but moments later became "unresponsive" and died.

﻿Born Hamilton Howard Fish on May 19, 1870, the man who would later be known as "The Gray Man," "The Werewolf," "The Brooklyn Vampire," and "The Boogey Man," grew up in an orphanage where he was introduced to drinking urine and eating feces. Not really a great start.

By 1890, he went to New York City and became a male prostitute, at which point he started raping young boys, mostly under the age of six.

A male lover once took him to a wax museum where he saw and was fascinated by a bisection of a penis (which is when a penis is split directly in half), which led to his obsession with castration, which he tried on a few of his victims.

He had "implements of Hell" (a butcher knife, a bone saw, and a meat cleaver), which he would use to torture, mutilate, and murder young children. He boasted to have a child he's either abused or eaten in every state in the U.S., but was only ever actually suspected of and convicted for about eight of them.

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The case that really made him famous (as it was what led to his final arrest) was the abduction and murder of Grace Budd (pictured above). He pretended to be taking her to his niece's birthday party, to which her parents consented, but was never brought back.

Here is the letter he sent the parents (WARNING, VERY GRAPHIC) describing exactly how he coerced her into trusting him, the fact that they all had lunch together, consented to her leaving, and details about how he stripped her, killed her, ate her, which parts tasted the best and the fact that he did not rape her.

He was executed via electric chair.

4

Man Attacked, Beheaded, Eaten on Public Bus

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﻿Vince Weiguang Li proves that not all Canadians are amazingly nice human beings who enjoy poutine and maple syrup. Some of them are complete monsters and can be found in the most unsuspecting places sometimes.

On a Greyhound bus, the new Canadian citizen, who immigrated from China, completely snapped and caused one of the most horrific scenes I've ever heard of (that actually happened) with a twist (wait for the end).

While sitting next to passenger Tim McLean (who was sleeping), Li produced a huge knife and began to stab him repeatedly in the neck and chest until McLean was completely decapitated (which just shows how badly some people hate sitting next to a snorer).

Li walked around showing the severed head to the rest of the passengers as they screamed and ran out of the bus in fear of being brutally dismembered as well. Li never left the bus, but stayed back and continued dismembering the man and consumed McLean's flesh, all while carrying around the severed head.

Out of respect for the dead, I will not mention the irony of McLean's last name or the fact that his name makes him already sound like a "nutritious" sandwich option at McDonald's.

The following is an interview with the cannibal himself where he chronicles why he did what he did and the fact that he actually enjoyed it.

Issei Sagawa became a notorious semi-celebrity in his native Japan in 1981 after killing and eating a Dutch exchange student named Renee Hartevelt. After inviting Hartevelt to his apartment in Paris to read and study poetry, he shot her in the neck, had sex with her corpse, and then spent two days carving up and eating her body. Sagawa later said that he had hoped that by eating the beautiful Hartevelt, he would absorb some of her healthy energy.

﻿Initially imprisoned in France for the crime, Sagawa was later extradited in Japan, where his crime became a subject of intense public fascination. The above is a documentary film about Sagawa that aired in Scandinavia in the 1980s called Cannibal Superstar. The scariest bit? Sagawa is currently a free man, living in Tokyo and working as a writer, restaurant reviewer (!!!), and guest speaker.

6

Cannibal Kills 19 People with His Mom

Currently residing in a psychiatric hospital, Alexander Spesivtsev killed up to 80 people (but was only convicted of 19) and ate a good majority of them. Unsurprisingly, he's been declared insane and is thankfully behind government-secured doors in Russia (pro tip: never try the street meat).

He was initially discovered and caught when his pipes started malfunctioning in his house. A pipe breakage forced his neighbors to call a plumber, who had to open his door by force when Spesivtsev wasn't home.

The plumber found a mutilated, headless body in the bathtub, bowls with pieces of human meat in them in the kitchen, and a mutilated Olga Galtseva somehow still alive on the sofa. She died shortly after, but was able to tell her story.

The creepiest part is that Spesivtsev's mother was luring the women into the apartment for him to rape, beat, kill, and eat.

The mother, of course, cooked the bodies for dinner after a hard day of living out The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He was sentenced to death after being found guilty of 19 murders.

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